The Joy Of Crystal Palace (1)

 The Station Not the Big Glass Paxton Shed!

After the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Crystal Palace was dismantled and moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham where, to cater for the expected visitors to exhibitions and events therein two new railway stations were built. 

High Level on Palace Parade closed in 1956 and little remains, just the long retaining wall ...

... and a tunnel mouth.

The Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936 ...

... thus depriving two station, far more opulent than a typical suburban "commuter" stop, of much of their custom.

Crystal Palace (formerly Low Level) remains and offers much of interest, such that the venerable Tim Dunn, current purveyor of the Railway Architecture series on the Yesterday channel, recently Twittered excitedly about its glories.

Before we look at the station itself, we need to examine the services which call there, under normal circumstance numbering four.

We will dispose of the easiest quite quickly. The Overground East London line has Crystal Palace as one of its four termini.

Each destination is served every 15 minutes, these termini being New Cross, Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace and West Croydon. This gives 16 trains an hour over the core of the route (Dalston Junction to Surrey Quays), a train every 3 mins 45 seconds.

The Crystal Palace trains leave the "main" line at Sydenham, crossing over on a flyover ...

...before travelling just one stop to reach the end of their journey.

The map above is slightly misleading as Penge West ...

... is a diddy station south of the junction, only served by West Croydon trains.

The three Southern routes that call at Crystal Palace are a tad more complicated - especially as one of them is suspended at the moment because of you-know-what.

Here is the timetable for the two that are still running.

There is a half hour service from Victoria which jojns the "main" line just beyond |Crystal Palace ...

... down there somewhere at Norwood Junction.

From there is continues, with the Overground branch, to West Croydon.

The other current service, which is reduced to a very non-memorable 90 minute frequency, starts at London Bridge and runs via Tulse Hill to Crystal Palace continuing via Birkbeck to Beckenham Junction. From near Birkbeck to its end point the line was singled and the space taken up with Croydon Tramlink f or its last section to Beckenham Jct.

Note the overhead catenary and lack of third rail on the right hand (tram) track.

Generally speaking, you will find more people on the trams than on the trains at this point - even under the present restrictions.

According to Blogger "Diamond Geezer" the statistics show that just two people per train used Birkbeck Station; and that was when the service was every 30 minutes BC!

The suspended service, which also ran half hourly until it was withdrawn can be followed on this Southern diagram. (click on the map for an enlargement).

Start at Victoria (upper left) then, after Crystal Palace, fork left to Sydenham and trundle north to London Bridge (upper right).

To summarise, then.

Crystal Palaces has the following train services.

With this in mind, we can move on to looking at the station and how it all works.

Snippet

A Bit Late Mate - At Beighton

There is a tram stop called Beighton Drake House Lane which is NOT at Beighton and NOT on Drake House Lane. It would be better called "Sainsburys Crystal Peaks" ...

... or even Crystal Peaks East - which is where it is. Beighton is a former mining village with its "centre" in the High Street (upper right on the map) ...

... about a mile away from the tram stop (lower left, by the roundabout near Crystal Peaks). On Beighton High Street there IS a post office, there WAS a petrol station and the WAS a nice traditional pub.

The Royal Oak is now a Tesco Express!

The filling station is now a hand car wash.

But there is still a Post Office and opposite that emporium is the people shelter whereat you could catch a bus to Rotherham (First 27) or Sheffield (T M Travel 30).

As well as out-of-date timetables, the frame at the stop is proud to advertise Sheffield's city centre free bus service, useful for shoppers.

Ahem? It last ran SIX YEARS AGO.

Well, it was useful them!

Good to see that the PTE (a k a Travel South Yorkshire) is fully up to date.

 Next Crystal Palace blog : Saturday 13th March